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mA Landscape of “Undesigned Design” in Rural Japan

Chris McMorran

ABSTRACT Rural landscapes have long stimulated nos-talgia for a simpler time and place. In contemporary Japan, real economic and social problems in the countryside have brought new attention to the role of rural communi-ties in the formation of Japanese identity. In this paper I introduce Kurokawa, a hot springs resort that has spent the past three decades emulating the rural idyll through what it calls fukeizukuri, or “landscape design,” en route to becoming one of Japan’s best known rural tourist destina-tions. I contextualize Kurokawa’s adoption of a themed landscape in the mid-1980s, and explain the design choices that have gained Kurokawa so much attention, including those found in the built and natural environment. Here, I emphasize the role local actors have played in cre-ating and enacting the landscape. I conclude by show-ing how the village’s adoption of a nostalgic rural theme has strengthened its status as not only an exemplar of the idealized aesthetics and social relations of the past, but also a rare rural community successfully adapting to the present.

KEYWORDS Landscape, tourism, Japan, theme, nostalgia

INTRODUCTIONThe hot springs resort of Kurokawa lies deep in the

mountains of central Kyūshū, approximately 80 miles

southeast of the regional hub of Fukuoka. Kurokawa

is a rare bright spot in a Japanese countryside suf-

fering from the problems of rural outmigration and

economic decline found elsewhere in the world. In

contrast, Kurokawa has thrived thanks to tourism.

Since the mid-1980s, Kurokawa has emerged from

obscurity to become one of the country’s best-known

hot springs resorts and a major tourist destination in

the region. The village of a few hundred permanent

residents annually draws around a million tourists

who soak in the springs, purchase souvenirs, stay in

one of 25 traditional inns, and otherwise enjoy its

rural landscape (Kurokawa Onsen Kankō Ryokan

Kyōdō Kumiai 2012a). Although little known outside

the country, Kurokawa has attracted attention from

more than tourists. Japanese academics, planners,

landscape architects, and designers have taken an

interest in this little mountain village. In 2007, Kuro-

kawa even received the Japan Institute of Design Pro-

motion’s “Good Design Award,” in recognition for its

nostalgic village landscape that “at a glance appears

undesigned” (ikken nanimo dezain shiteinai youni

mieru) (S&T Institute of Environmental Planning and

Design 2008, 34).

In this paper I analyze Kurokawa’s “undesigned”

tourist landscape and the decades of fūkeizukuri, or

“landscape design,” that shaped it. I explain Kuro-

kawa’s adoption of the theme of the furusato, or

“hometown,” in the mid-1980s, when postwar nostal-

gia for the Japanese countryside became widespread,

and I discuss how Kurokawa continues to profi t from

a collective fear that Japan’s rural villages are vanish-

ing, thereby threatening a perceived source of Japanese

cultural identity. Then I explore the design choices that

2 Landscape Journal 33:1

embody the collective cultural heritage of the furu-

sato, which have gained Kurokawa so much atten-

tion, including those found in the built and natural

environment. Here, I emphasize the role local actors

have played in creating and enacting the landscape.

As I show, this role is highlighted in the narrative of

fūkeizukuri, which strengthens the village’s status as

not only an exemplar of the idealized aesthetics and

social relations of the past, but also a rare rural com-

munity successfully adapting to the present. Overall,

Kurokawa off ers a non-Western example of a themed

tourist landscape that presents an idealized past for

cultural and political gain, while adapting to contem-

porary needs.

I base this study on twelve months of fi eldwork

conducted in Kurokawa and surrounding villages

between 2004 and 2007. I interviewed business owners

and residents, shadowed inn workers, and conducted

participant observation in seven inns. This included

10 to 12-hour workdays spent shuttling guests to and

from the village bus stop, sweeping paths, scrubbing

indoor and outdoor baths, washing dishes, cleaning

rooms, and countless other tasks required to make

guests feel “at home” (see McMorran 2012). My

interests in the tourist landscape and my willingness

to work in Kurokawa’s inns and get my hands dirty,

so to speak, opened doors among landscape planners,

business owners, and residents who consider their

landscape work their legacy to their families and the

region. Interviews were informal and did not follow

any script; however, the conversation inevitably linked

to the landscape, a topic respondents were very vocal

about. In some cases, I was fortunate to interview

locals while walking through the landscape, which

prompted comments on specifi c landscape design ele-

ments. I also analyzed media about Kurokawa, includ-

ing travel magazines, brochures, webpages, planning

guides, and television programs, all of which celebrate

its landscape design and bolster its narrative. Finally,

I sent follow-up emails and conducted follow-up

interviews with locals during short annual visits from

2008–13. This combination of participation in land-

scape design, discussion with landscape designers, and

analysis of media featuring the landscape provided a

multi-method approach to understand the relevance of

landscape design in Kurokawa.

Figure 1Kurokawa and northern Kyushu. (Courtesy of Chris McMorran, 2013)

McMorran 3

A LANDSCAPE OF “UNDESIGNED DESIGN”Hemmed in by steep hills, Kurokawa consists of a

few dozen inns, hotels, shops, cafés and homes clus-

tered along the Ta no hara river (Figures 1, 2). With

the nearest railway station nearly an hour away, all

guests arrive by car or bus, winding along mountain

roads. Most visitors fi rst stop at the Kaze no ya (liter-

ally “wind hut”), the de facto information center and

headquarters of the Kurokawa Onsen Tourist Ryokan

Association, or kumiai as it is called by locals (Figure

3). Before exploring the town’s steep narrow streets

on foot, they collect maps and seek advice on which

outdoor baths to try. They may visit the shop with

the shoulder-high doorway that sells locally distilled

spirits, the restaurant with hand-made buckwheat

noodles, or the pastry shop whose cream puff s occa-

sionally attract a queue out the door. As they walk

through the village, visitors often photograph them-

selves next to the tree-lined river and in front of inns

and shops.

Located at an elevation of 2300 feet, the resort

can be covered in snow, exploding with the colors

of fl owers and foliage, or cooler than the sweltering

cities below, depending on the season. For most of

the year, however, it fl oats in a sea of green. Straight

rows of plantation forests, primarily Japanese cedar

(Cryptomeria japonica, or sugi), line the hillsides,

while in the midst of Kurokawa, mixed deciduous

and coniferous species stand amid fl owering shrubs,

enveloping structures and decorating roadsides. Dark

wooden signs with Japanese and English script point

to businesses, and all buildings follow a similar pat-

tern: built one to three stories high and painted beige

or dark mustard, with black roofs and trim (Figure 4).

The overall eff ect gives Kurokawa a timeless quality;

vaguely traditional, but not grounded in a specifi c era

of the past.

Kurokawa’s landscape off ers a stark contrast

to Japan’s large cities, where most of the country’s

population is concentrated and through which all non-

Japanese tourists pass on their way to the resort. Both

Japanese and non-Japanese visitors describe Kurokawa

as “like stepping back in time.” In a year spent work-

ing at a handful of inns in the resort, it was often my

job to welcome guests and accompany them through

this landscape for the fi rst time. At one inn I shuttled

Figure 2Aerial view of Kurokawa. (From Kurokawa Onsen no fukeizukuri, p. 7. Reprint courtesy of S&T Institute of Environmental Planning and Design)

Figure 3Built in 1993, the Kaze no ya (“wind hut”) hosts the Kurokawa Onsen Tourist Ryokan Association and tourist information center. (From Kurokawa Onsen no fukeizukuri, p. 15. Reprint courtesy of S&T Institute of Environmental Planning and Design)


guests from the bus stop, passing through the heart of

Kurokawa along the way. My passengers frequently

commented that Kurokawa was “so nostalgic” (natsu-

kashii) and that “it feels wonderful to be surrounded

by nature.” At another inn I swept the paths and

parking lot and greeted arrivals. As I carried luggage

through the tunnel of trees to the lobby, guests often

remarked how fortunate I was to work in this beauti-

ful landscape. Japanese guests sometimes expressed

surprise at seeing me, saying, “I didn’t expect to meet

a foreigner in such a traditional Japanese place.” For

non-Japanese, visiting Kurokawa meant getting out

of cities and visiting “the real Japan.” A young Swiss

couple traveling in East Asia explained, “After a week

in Korea we needed to escape the crowds and big cities.

This is perfect. You are surrounded by nature and can

feel traditional Japan.”

In dozens of glossy travel guides and magazines

dedicated to Kurokawa, the landscape is the central

feature. They show photographs of inn entrances

framed by trees and outdoor baths next to the river. The

guidebook Precious Kurokawa, for example, calls Kuro-

kawa a place where one can experience “the coexistence

of nature and mankind” (Urutora hausu 2003, 7), while

the magazine series Japan’s Favorite Hot Springs pub-

lished its second issue on Kurokawa and introduced it as

“Nestled quietly in a tiny valley, ticking off the moments

of eternity” (Mapuru 2003, cover). Although Kurokawa

is still largely unknown beyond Japan, infl uential travel

guide publisher The Lonely Planet calls it “a real trea-

sure” largely because of its landscape:

A few dozen ryokan lie along a steep-sided valley [. . .] Considered one of the best onsen villages in Japan, Kurokawa is everything a resort town should be without accompanying kitsch or ugliness. While it’s well frequented and you certainly won’t be alone, this low-key resort still seems like it’s a tiny,

Figure 4Tourists crossing the Ta no hara River. All shops and inns follow the prescribed furusato landscape design. (Courtesy of Chris McMorran, 2012)

McMorran 5

forgotten village that you’ve been lucky to stumble upon (The Lonely Planet 2013).

Such descriptions highlight how natural, almost

organic, Kurokawa appears in the landscape. The

implied contrast with large resorts like nearby Beppu,

considered outdated and ugly to many Japanese and

non-Japanese, is obvious.

This is the landscape the Japan Institute of Design

Promotion celebrated in 2007 for its “undesigned

design” (dezain shinai dezain) (S&T Institute of Envi-

ronmental Planning and Design 2008, 34). Although

this depiction may seem contradictory, it acknowledges

both how eff ortless Kurokawa’s landscape appears,

and the work necessary to maintain it. One inn owner

explains the “design” aspect as such, “Of course, this

landscape is not just left over from old times. We made

all of this. We planted the trees and built the baths

with our own hands.” However, he also acknowledges

why it appears “undesigned”: “We built it so that it

doesn’t look like a lot of diff erent people built it, but

like it appeared long ago” (Gotō 2005, 6). I argue that

“undesigned design” neatly summarizes the relationship

between Kurokawa’s theme of timeless rural village (the

furusato) and eff orts by locals to design and maintain

the landscape since the 1980s through what they call

fūkeizukuri (landscape design, landscape-making). I

show that due to this unique combination of factors,

instead of struggling with thorny issues of authenticity

that plague other themed tourist destinations, Kuro-

kawa has come to epitomize its theme.

FUKEIZUKURI IN CULTURAL CONTEXTUnderstanding Kurokawa’s landscape requires under-

standing two key ideas related to its construction:

fūkeizukuri and furusato. The word fūkeizukuri con-

sists of two parts. First is fūkei, one of several terms

meaning “landscape,” and one with its own compli-

cated past and present in Japanese (Watanabe, Shinji et

al. 2009). The Japanese have long used landscape gar-

dens and (Chinese style) landscape paintings (sansuiga)

to create assemblages of symbolic landscape elements.

However, it was not until the 1890s that a new type

of “natural” landscape was “discovered,” the fūkei.

According to literary scholar Karatani Kōjin (1993), a

new interiority within the nascent modern Japanese

literature at the time changed the way the Japanese

perceived their surroundings, thus stimulating the

“discovery of landscape” external to the self. Before

this, travel centered on religious pilgrimage, the fulfi ll-

ment of duties, and visits to “famous places” (meisho)

of historical, geological, or literary signifi cance. People

would have traveled to a mundane hot springs resort

like Kurokawa for the recuperative eff ects of the

waters, but not to appreciate its landscape.

In addition to fūkei, other terms relate to the

landscape idea, including keshiki and keikan. How-

ever, both imply a static “scene” observed from a single

vantage point, and the latter is more often a technical

or legal term.1 As a long-time design collaborator in

Kurokawa pointed out to me, “Keikan relates to things

like the academic discipline of landscape engineering,

the [2004] Landscape Act,2 and landscape planning,

which are all quite infl exible. In Kurokawa, we con-

sciously use ‘fūkei’ because it has a softer meaning.”

Fūkei suggests an ever-shifting landscape and a way

of seeing (mikata) that have been inspired by Anglo-

phone conceptions of landscape not as a concrete,

static thing, but an ongoing process “at once manipu-

lable and manipulated, always subject to change, and

everywhere implicated in the ongoing formation of

social life” (Schein 2010, 662). As such, fūkei includes

an emotional element lacking in the other terms. The

landscape designer put it this way, “One can say,

‘When I look at that fūkei I cry,’ but not, ‘When I look

at that keikan I cry.’”

The goal for Kurokawa’s planners and residents

is to create a landscape that touches visitors’ emo-

tions. This requires more than a certain assemblage of

natural and built elements. It also requires the ongo-

ing attachment to the landscape by locals and their

own hard work to constantly improve it. Kurokawa’s

residents emphasize their active role in this process by

calling their actions fūkeizukuri. By adding zukuri,

from the verb tsukuru, meaning “making,” “construct-

ing,” or “building,” locals use a common linguistic

device to describe the active process of “making” that

which is desired. Similar to the geographical notion of

“place-making,” which indicates the process of foster-

ing a sense of place (Anderson and Gale 1992; Martin

2003), Japanese have for decades engaged in machizu-

kuri (town-making) and furusatozukuri (hometown-

making) projects. In these projects, local governments

aim to build a sense of community through activities

like festivals (Knight 1994a; Sorensen and Funck 2007).

In Kurokawa, locals create and maintain the landscape


through fūkeizukuri, working together to create not

a static keikan or keshiki, but a fūkei that will dem-

onstrate to visitors their connection to the landscape

and highlight their continued eff orts to recreate their

chosen theme of furusato.

POSTWAR NOSTALGIA AND THE FURUSATOLiterally “old village,” but often translated “home-

town,” or “native place,” furusato refers to both

actual and imagined places. For instance, one’s

actual furusato is the place where one was born, be

it a village in Kyūshū or downtown Tokyo. Or, more

removed in time and space, one’s furusato can be the

rural village where one’s ancestors lived and where the

family grave is located. However, just as the response

to the question, “Where are you from?” can prompt

an array of responses depending on the context, the

geographical scale of the furusato—neighborhood,

municipality, or prefecture—may diff er depending

on who is asking and where. In fact, a citizen living

abroad might call Japan furusato, while a Tokyoite

traveling to a place like Kurokawa might happily refer

to it as furusato.

Japan’s postwar experience helped lay the founda-

tions for contemporary nostalgia for the countryside

and the cultural importance of the furusato. Less than

a generation after Japan’s defeat and economic ruin in

World War II, the country boasted the world’s second-

largest economy. By 1973, the country had experienced

more than a decade of double-digit annual growth that

brought relative affl uence to most of the population.

However, the country’s economic growth had been

geographically uneven. Most growth occurred in and

around urban areas, fueled by a steady infl ux of labor

from the countryside and infrastructure and industrial

projects spearheaded by the state in and near urban

areas (Johnson 1982; McCormack 2001). Despite

ongoing state attempts to encourage economic growth

elsewhere, such as through improved transportation

networks, a clear rural-urban divide had grown amid

the country’s so-called “economic miracle.”

Urbanization and steadily growing incomes from

the mid-1950s onward eventually stimulated nostalgia

for the perceived simplicity and wholesome values

of rural life and its landscapes, which were feared to

be vanishing (Ivy 1995). Such nostalgia for the rural

past is certainly not unique to Japan (du Maurier

1981), but the relative similarity of landforms (75%

mountainous) and the location of agricultural villages

(narrow river valleys and a few broad plains) has meant

the emergence of a somewhat generic image of the

landscape in which that rural past occurred. The loss

of the countryside implies the loss of a pillar in the

construction of Japanese national identity, particularly

communities engaged in rice-based agriculture

(Ohnuki-Tierney 1993; Schnell 2008). Rice-growing

villages are often considered “cultural exemplars,” due

to their association with cherished cultural values like

group harmony, cooperation, and interdependence

(Schnell 2008, 205), which helped frame cultural

explanations of Japan’s dynamic postwar economic

growth (Befu 2001). As Sonia Ryang (2004) and others

have shown, the simplicity and historical inaccuracy

of this belief is irrelevant; for over a century it has

served the political, business, and cultural elite to

claim that a unique, homogenous, group-centered,

cooperative Japanese identity arose from a rural

landscape (Gluck 1985; Gordon 1998). For many, the

countryside remains an idyll whose always-imminent

loss stimulates longing for its aff ective and aesthetic

qualities. These qualities are often crystallized in the

furusato.

Writing about the ubiquity of the term furusato

in 1980s-Japan, Jennifer Robertson has suggested that

it can be an imagined one. She notes that furusato

most commonly is used “in an aff ective capacity to

signify not a particular—such as a real ‘old village,’ for

example—but rather the generalized nature of such

a place and the warm, nostalgic feelings aroused by

its mention” (Robertson 1988, 495–6). These warm,

nostalgic feelings can be aroused through song, story,

or though natural and built elements in the landscape:

“forested mountains, fi elds cut by a meandering river,

and a cluster of thatch-roof farmhouses” (Robertson

1988, 494).

The furusato resembles the satoyama, another

term associated with nostalgia for rural Japan but

used more precisely by landscape ecologists and others

focused on nature-society interactions. Comprised of

the characters for “village” and “mountain,” satoyama

can be narrowly defi ned as “a sphere of ‘encultured’

nature that has traditionally existed on the periphery

of rural settlements, but which is increasingly threat-

ened by industrialisation, urban development, rural

depopulation and changing lifestyles” (Knight 2010,

421). Sometimes used interchangeably with furusato,

McMorran 7

satoyama generally indicates the buff er zone between

human settlements and upland forests, where bears,

monkeys, and wild boars live, and areas where humans

rarely ventured in the past. The satoyama buff er zones

comprise “the semi-managed, semi-cultivated area

of woodland, shrubland and grassland surround-

ing human settlements” (ibid., 422). This is a space

in which humans manage nature on a semi-regular

basis, thinning trees for fi rewood or to make charcoal,

searching bamboo stands for edible shoots buried

beneath the soil, picking fungi and berries for con-

sumption, and collecting undergrowth material for

fertilizer.

Advocates of more sustainable agricultural and

land-use practices often cite the satoyama as an

example of a symbiotic relationship between man and

nature, “born out of an intimate and even reverential

connection with nature [. . .] living in a sustained way

over many generations” (Williams 2010, 24). In other

words, the focus is on the nature-society interaction

within a relatively narrow geographical space. Impor-

tantly, this is not the space of agriculture, like the areas

of rice-cultivation typically connected to the furusato.

So, when one speaks of the furusato landscape, one

typically includes natural elements like forests and

rivers, but one emphasizes the human element and the

intangible qualities the landscape evokes like group

harmony, interdependence, compassion, and local

identity.

The furusato landscape evokes a simpler time and

place and provides contemporary Japanese, even those

lacking a rural furusato of their own, a connection to

the country’s rural heritage. The Japanese countryside

has such a powerful role as the perceived location of

cultural roots that any rural village with the appropri-

ate natural and built elements can be conceived of as

furusato. As I explain below, tourist destinations like

Kurokawa take advantage of this fact to manipulate

the landscape and attract visitors.

PROTECTING THE FURUSATO LANDSCAPEFor decades the Japanese state has aimed to curb

depopulation and encourage economic development

in rural areas, not only to redistribute wealth but also

to protect the rural origins of Japanese identity, its

collective furusato (Knight 1994b; Thompson 2003).

In the 1970s local governments and entrepreneurs

initiated model projects, like the “One Village, One

Product” (isson ippin) movement, which required no

state assistance and were self-sustaining (Hiramatsu

1982). However, these were rare and limited in scale,

and by the mid-1980s, the state believed rural areas

could only be saved through large tourism develop-

ment or other forms of state stimulus. Major initia-

tives included the 1987 Resort Law and the 1988–89

Furusato Creation Plan. The Resort Law off ered cor-

porate incentives for the construction of large leisure

projects like golf courses, ski resorts, and hotel resort

complexes, largely in rural areas (Moon 2002). Gavin

McCormack and others have criticized this “resortifi -

cation of Japan” for greasing the wheels of the corrupt

construction state but failing “to invigorate declining

local communities, relieve their isolation and chronic

aging profi le, or to provide facilities to meet the needs

of the Japanese people as a whole for relaxation and

recreation” (2001, 105).

The Furusato Creation Plan, on the other hand,

gave a one-time grant of 100 million yen (approx.

US $800,000) to all of Japan’s 3,268 municipalities to

help invigorate their communities through bottom-up

approaches. The aim was to provide start-up capital

to help locals build infrastructure (centers to celebrate

local crafts and traditions, museums, community hot

springs facilities) that would improve life for local

residents and potentially attract tourists. Unfortu-

nately, many projects failed, and the overall problems

of outmigration and economic decline continued to

trouble most parts of rural Japan throughout the 1990s

and beyond (Matanle, Rausch et al. 2011).

Since the 2000s Japan’s rural troubles have contin-

ued. Abandoned homes, forests, and fi elds are increas-

ingly common throughout the countryside, and some

villages in mountainous regions have been so devas-

tated that they have been called “semideserted refuges

for the old” (McCormack 2001, 102). Additional con-

cern for the future of Japan’s villages has stemmed

from recent administrative amalgamations. This

fi scal belt-tightening strategy reduced Japan’s total

number of municipalities from over 3,000 in 2005 to

1,730 in 2010 through the absorption of villages into

larger cities and the amalgamation of multiple vil-

lages and towns into single units (Ministry of Internal

Aff airs and Communications 2010). However, the

eff ort revealed the sensitivity of villages vanishing

from the countryside. Book titles like Vanished Vil-

lage: What was the Great Heisei Amalgamation?


(Suganama 2005) and Vanishing Village, Surviving

Village: Mountain Villages Buff eted by City/Town/

Village Amalgamation (Fujii 2006) show the contin-

ued fear about its potential loss, and by extension, the

continued importance of this space in the Japanese

imagination.

Against this backdrop of depopulation, des-

perate attempts at revival, forced amalgamations,

and vanishing villages, Kurokawa, the easternmost

hamlet of Minami-Oguni town, is a remarkable

success story. Corporations ignored it in the wake

of the 1987 Resort Law, and Minami-Oguni town

used its Furusato Creation Plan funds to construct a

market and tourist information center near its town

center, bypassing Kurokawa altogether. Like most

rural towns and villages, Minami-Oguni’s popula-

tion has declined since the 1950s, falling from a peak

of 7,761 in 1955 to 4,687 in 2005, recovering slightly

since 2000 (pop. 4,657) (Minami-Oguni Town 2012).

People in local government and beyond credit Kuro-

kawa with boosting the population fi gures, through

stimulating dozens of new businesses and the return

migration of former residents. While depopulation,

aging, and economic uncertainty threaten the future

of many Japanese villages, the nostalgic appeal of

the countryside persists, and it is destinations like

Kurokawa that tourists visit to satisfy a longing for

vanishing rural landscapes. Kurokawa’s leaders and

residents play their part by actively producing the

desired landscape.

KUROKAWA’S LANDSCAPE DESIGN NARRATIVE Numerous books, magazines, online, and video

specials depict Kurokawa’s success. They describe

a village teetering on extinction in the late 1970s,

suff ering the same problems as others in the postwar

era: depopulation, a weakening economic base, a lack

of infrastructure, and a bleak future. They tell of

businesses competing with each other for an ever-

shrinking number of tourists and arguing about how

to best change their condition. Instead of succumbing

to petty rivalries, closing businesses, or abandon-

ing the village, the members of the Kurokawa Onsen

Tourist Ryokan Association (hereafter the kumiai,

as it is called by locals) banded together in the spirit

of the furusato (Kumamoto Nichinichi Shimbun

2000; Matsuda 2001; Niwa 2002; Gotō 2005; Terebi

Tokyo 2009).

In the multiple retellings of Kurokawa’s history,

this strategy of cooperation and interdependence

becomes the secret of success. Instead of splintering,

locals adopted the theme of furusato and wound up

epitomizing it and its cultural values of group har-

mony, cooperation, and interdependence. Although

locals admit Kurokawa’s well-rehearsed tale of heroic

“revitalization” (Gotō (2005) calls it saisei, which can

also mean “rebirth”) contains some exaggeration,

it is worth recounting, since it shows the relevance

of the theme of furusato in contemporary Japanese

society and the power of the tale itself to celebrate

and reinforce certain beliefs about the countryside.

Here, Patricia Price’s work on the connections between

landscape and narrative is instructive. As she explains,

landscapes “allow us to tell stories about ourselves to

ourselves and thereby construct collective identities”

(Price 2004, 23–24). In the case of Kurokawa, a collec-

tive identity has been inscribed in both the narrative

and the landscape of Kurokawa, showing the relevance

of the furusato theme in Japan today.

According to the standard narrative, Kurokawa

experienced a short-lived boom in tourists in the

1960s following completion of the nearby Yamanami

Highway, a toll road that linked Oita and Kumamoto

prefectures. However, according to one informant

the facilities and service levels were too low and the

village “lacked charm” (miryoku ga nakatta). In other

words, there was nothing to distinguish Kurokawa

from hundreds of similar remote hot springs resorts

scattered throughout the archipelago. As Gotō Tetsuya,

owner of two successful inns in Kurokawa and now a

nationally-renowned tourism expert, explains, “Kuro-

kawa was just a backwards (inaka) hot spring deep in

the mountains” (Gotō 2005, 7).

By the early 1980s, the rest of Japan had changed

so much that Kurokawa’s “backwards” landscape

was appreciated in a new light. Urbanization, a mas-

sive increase in consumers with disposable income,

widespread car ownership, improved infrastructure to

rural areas, and an emerging nostalgia for a vanishing

furusato landscape all laid the groundwork for Kuro-

kawa’s popularity. And while hot springs resorts like

nearby Beppu and Tsuetate had built concrete hotels

to accommodate tour buses fi lled with large groups,

leaders in Kurokawa recognized a shift in Japanese

tourist desires and behaviors. They began accentuating

their “backwards” landscape through fūkeizukuri and

McMorran 9

targeting small groups of travelers like young women,

couples, and families.

Gotō Tetsuya fi rst recognized the changing desires

of tourists in the late 1970s. A second generation inn

owner, he decided to renovate his inn not with modern

updates, but to look older. Ideas included an outdoor

bath encircled by trees and a cave bath of his mak-

ing, both of which would provide guests a more rustic

experience than available in most hot springs resorts.

Within a few years, bookings had increased. However,

Gotō was alone. He repeatedly encouraged other mem-

bers of the kumiai to join him, explaining, “It wasn’t

enough for one inn to look old and attract guests. All

the inns and businesses had to produce a rural atmo-

sphere together. [. . .] to create ‘Japan’s furusato’”

(Gotō 2005, 7–8). He urged others to stake their futures

on the economic and ideological value of the furusato,

even as the negative aspects of rural life—depopula-

tion, aging population, stagnant economy—became

more pronounced. Even in Kurokawa, some owners

struggled with building repairs they could not aff ord

and days or weeks without guests.

Gotō’s growing success eventually convinced

a new generation of younger, second- and third-

generation inn owners to adopt the furusato theme,

sometimes ignoring the advice of their fathers. By

incorporating the furusato theme, Kurokawa’s leaders

would provide a space of healing (iyashii) for visitors

suff ering from, as they perceived it, “long commutes

on crowded trains,” “days sitting in front of a com-

puter,” and “a lack of any connection to nature.” The

fi rst two steps to fūkeizukuri involved tree planting

and bath construction. Like most mountain villages,

Kurokawa was surrounded by rows of single variety

plantation forests, a reminder of high domestic lumber

prices in the 1960s before the market opened to less

expensive imports (Totman 1989). Gotō suggested

transplanting saplings from a nearby mixed forest to

the front of inns and along roadsides, thereby diversi-

fying species and softening the landscape (Figure 5).

They chose trees and shrubs that would make an

immediate impact, and they planted them around

the newly-constructed baths to provide a feeling of

being surrounded by nature and protect bathers from

unwanted eyes. Varieties included dogwood, beech,

maple, birch, magnolia, camellia, verbena, azalea, elm,

and honeysuckle. As for baths, nearly all inns built an

outdoor bath like Gotō’s. However, two inns lacked

suffi cient space, turning away potential guests. The

solution neatly fi t the social aspect of the furusato

theme: all inns agreed to allow any guest to enter their

outdoor bath for a small fee. The innovation that

enabled this collective use of village resources was

a small wooden pass that allowed the purchaser to

enter any three outdoor baths in the village. Called

the nyūto tegata (bath pass) and introduced in 1986,

it served as a concrete reminder of the interdependent

ties among inns. These initial acts of fūkeizukuri

attracted media attention. In the few months after the

bath pass was launched, several television specials

devoted to hot springs focused episodes on Kuro-

kawa’s innovations and nostalgic landscape, followed

Figure 5Tree-planting along streets (called michi no ryokka, “street greening”) softens the landscape. (From Kurokawa Onsen no fukeizukuri, p. 10. Reprint courtesy of S&T Institute of Environmental Planning and Design)


Figure 6Fukeizukuri design plan, 2009. (From Kurokawa Onsen no fukeizukuri, p. 7–8. Reprint courtesy of S&T Institute of Environmental Planning and Design)

Figure 7Signage is uniform throughout the resort, both in color (white on black) and material (local cedar). A local craftsman creates all the signs, making small differences only in the Japanese font, which each inn chooses. (Courtesy of Chris McMorran, 2012)

Figure 8Coca-Cola vending machine painted brown instead of bright red, next to a cigarette vending machine and map. Kumiai officials claim they were the first to ask Coca-Cola to produce a specially-colored vending machine, which would better suit Kurokawa. (Courtesy of Chris McMorran, 2012)

McMorran 11

by dozens of newspapers, magazines, and tabloids

of all sorts (Kumamoto Nichinichi Shimbun 2000,

98–106). The country was experiencing both a hot

springs boom and a widespread nostalgia for the

countryside, and Kurokawa was suddenly no longer a

secret that one had to stumble upon.

In the years that followed, Kurokawa continued

to attract visitors to its baths and furusato land-

scape. Importantly, this did not just mean its scen-

ery (a village full of trees, lacking modern elements

like a train station and tall buildings), but also the

practices of its inhabitants (a group of hard-working

villagers engaged in a collective endeavor), both of

which have been celebrated repeatedly. In addition

to providing guests access to all outdoor baths in the

village, each bath pass sold provides a profi t of 190

yen (approximately US$2) to the kumiai. Launched

in 1986, Kurokawa sold its fi rst million passes in

15 years and its second million only six years later

(2007) (Kurokawa Onsen Kankō Ryokan Kyōdō

Kumiai 2012a). These proceeds have provided mil-

lions in revenue with which to hire staff , run public-

ity campaigns, and continually expand fūkeizukuri

eff orts (Figure 6).

Notable eff orts include the establishment of

uniform signs for all businesses (ca. 1987) (Figure 7),

standardization of nostalgic outdoor light fi xtures

(ca. 1988), construction of an information center for

distribution of maps and information on booking

accommodations (called Kaze no ya, ca.1993), paint-

ing of all white roadside guardrails dark brown (ca.

1996), completion of a community events and meet-

ing center (called Betchin-kan, ca. 2003), installation

of large tourist maps and direction signs throughout

the resort (ca. 2003), public toilets built to look tradi-

tional (ca. 2004), and streets with improved access for

foot traffi c and more aesthetically pleasing greenery

(ca. 1999-present). To further standardize fūkeizukuri

eff orts, business leaders and residents created a com-

prehensive list of landscape rules for businesses and

homes (ca. 2003) that explain “Kurokawa-like” (Kuro-

kawa-rashii) aesthetics related to items like 1) building

height and color, 2) roof color and pitch 3) appropri-

ate greenery, 4) height and materials of garden walls,

5) billboards (“design that suits Kurokawa”), and even

6) vending machines (painted brown or placed under a

structure “built with wood or highly wood-like materi-

als”) (Figure 8).

EMBODYING THE FURUSATO THEMEThe rules and landscape alterations listed above

emphasize buildings, roads, signs, and other objects

that jointly create a cohesive rural idyll. While some of

these changes require outside contractors and spe-

cialized permits, the majority of fūkeizukuri eff orts,

and the ones most heavily emphasized in the narra-

tive, consist of more mundane practices. For instance,

fūkeizukuri includes regular activities like planting

trees and shrubs, river clean-up, repairing stone walls,

fi re prevention drills, concerts, festivals, and meet-

ings among representatives from various stakeholder

groups, including the inn owners’ association (kumiai),

the local residents’ association (jichikai), the tour-

ism association (kankō kyōkai), and the young adults’

organization (seinenbu). Importantly, these forms of

fūkeizukuri are not the work of a disembodied pres-

ervationist committee, nor are they the product of

migrant labor that is purposefully hidden from view

in order to preserve a particular narrative of how the

landscape came to be (Mitchell 1996; Duncan and

Duncan 2004). Nearly all fūkeizukuri is visible to the

public, and it is sometimes photographed and shared

afterward (Kurokawa Onsen Kankō Ryokan Kyōdō

Kumiai 2012b).

However, fūkeizukuri does not involve re-

enactment, nor is landscape design done for the

enjoyment of tourists, as in themed tourist land-

scapes like Colonial Williamsburg, in the United

States. The furusato is a theme that draws on

the past, while also fitting comfortably with the

present. It is so generic that it avoids the sorts

of challenges encountered in most themed land-

scapes. In fact, since a key essence of the theme of

furusato is the affective qualities it represents, I

argue that the very process of fūkeizukuri allows

Kurokawa’s citizens to actively bring the furu-

sato to life. Throughout this paper I have called

furusato a theme. However, furusato differs in

many ways from other themed landscapes both

within and beyond Japan, and it reveals several

cultural aspects related to themes and the idea of

authenticity.

Themes have been widely used in tourist develop-

ment in Japan over the past 30 years. Following the

successful launch of Tokyo Disneyland in 1983, Japan

saw a boom in theme parks and theme destinations of

all shapes and sizes, including those devoted to space


exploration (Space World), fi lm (Universal Studios

Japan), and even foreign countries, such as Canadian

World, Azumino Swiss Village, Parque España, Rus-

sian Village, British Hills, Maruyama Shakespeare

Park, and Huis ten Bosch (Dutch). In each foreign

country park (gaikoku mura) visitors enjoy a selection

of architecture, food, music, festivals, and other cul-

tural aspects associated with the country in question.

Foreign themed townscapes in the United States often

spring from resident ethnic communities, such as in

Solvang, CA (Danish), Holland, MI (Dutch), and New

Glarus, WI (Swiss). However, foreign theme parks in

Japan had no local community on which to base their

themes. Instead, they adopted an invented theme like

Leavenworth, WA (Bavarian) and Helen, GA (Bavar-

ian) and tried to create an authentic replica, a complex

and culturally distinctive process.

Adopting a theme is risky business for any com-

munity. The rewards can be great, with increased

tourist revenues, higher property values, more jobs,

opportunities for local entrepreneurs, and a land-

scape admired by others. However, choosing a theme

requires confi dence in the popularity of a theme,

regardless of future political and cultural shifts. It

needs adoption of the theme from as many stakehold-

ers as possible, including political institutions, busi-

nesses, and citizens. It means a long-term commitment

to an architectural style that can be confi ning and con-

stant reliance on fi ckle tourists and the inconveniences

that can come from strangers coming to town. Local

residents may worry about price infl ation, a shortage of

parking, or even the sense that their town is no longer

theirs (Frenkel and Walton 2000). As Frenkel and Wal-

ton (2000) argue though, a more pressing and conten-

tious issue is authenticity. When a community adopts

an invented theme, it already admits to being merely

a replica of another place. This does not prevent the

community from aiming for authenticity, however,

authenticity is perceived to be of central importance

for visitors. In this case authenticity is defi ned as

replicating the original as closely as possible through

“visual conformity” and “visual authenticity” (Fren-

kel and Walton 2000, 569). However, as theme towns

learn, authenticity is an ever-fl eeting goal; the more

one aims for it, the more it slips away. As a theme town

continues to emulate the original referent, rules must

be created and enforced to maintain visual consis-

tency. If authenticity is perceived as primarily a visual

measure that requires conformity to a clear, singular

referent, then any divergence from the model creates a

problem. However, if authenticity is conceived diff er-

ently, as it is in Japan, a lack of visual conformity is not

cause for concern.

In her review of Japanese foreign country parks,

Joy Hendry points out their attention to detail and

to what she calls “an internal degree of authenticity”

(Hendry 2000, 20, my emphasis). Here, she notes how

authenticity is understood and performed in Japan.

For instance, in most traditional forms of art, includ-

ing calligraphy, fl ower arranging, and even martial

arts like karate, stress is placed not on the fi nished

product but on perfecting one’s form (kata). Students

learn an art by carefully copying and repeating the

form of the teacher. Only this way does one slowly

build muscle memory and perfect one step at a time.

Interestingly, the construction of the many foreign

country parks involved careful study not only of the

exteriors of buildings, but how they were built. Only

by understanding the form could park developers

hope to faithfully recreate Shakespeare’s home, for

example.

This attention to form over visual result can be

found elsewhere, most notably in the Grand Shrine

at Ise. Every 20 years an exact replica of the existing

shrine is built on a neighboring site, and the existing

shrine destroyed. This practice has been taking place

regularly for centuries. Some may see the replica as

“new” and thus a fake (or at most a close approxima-

tion of the original). However, the focus is not on the

fi nished product but on retention of the architectural

techniques, festivals, and other social networks neces-

sary to transport the lumber from upstream villages,

shape it, and assemble the fi nished product at Ise.

Because of this attention to form, one could argue that

the “new” shrine is even more authentic than if it were

the 1000-year old original.

With no single referent, Kurokawa could struggle

from the same problems of inauthenticity as Bavarian

Leavenworth and other towns with invented themes.

Of course, Kurokawa avoids some of these concerns

because the chosen theme is native to Japan. However,

more important is the fact that the theme emphasizes

not only the aesthetic qualities of forested moun-

tains, gently-fl owing rivers, rice fi elds, and a cluster of

homes, but also aff ective qualities like interdependence

and group harmony. Through fūkeizukuri, which

McMorran 13

emphasizes cooperative action to shape the landscape,

Kurokawa produces the most authentic furusato and

becomes the model for its own theme.

CONCLUSIONS FROM A POWERFUL LANDSCAPEFūkeizukuri in Kurokawa provides a unique case of a

themed tourist landscape that relies on a culturally-

specifi c nostalgia for a rural past, while also showing

its relevance in the present. Through joint eff orts of

fūkeizukuri like planting trees, Kurokawa’s residents

have shaped a successful tourist landscape and come

to embody the theme they set out to emulate. Themed

tourist landscapes may seem benign, but Kurokawa’s

“undesigned design” demonstrates the relevance of the

furusato theme and its associated cultural values in

contemporary Japanese society. The similarity of the

built landscape makes it feel “undesigned” and exactly

what a rural village should naturally look like, while

the narrative depicts local residents fi ghting to prevent

their village from vanishing beginning in the 1980s,

specifi cally through eff orts to aesthetically improve

the landscape. As the story of Kurokawa’s success is

repeated, the narrative becomes solidifi ed through

the landscape and reinforces the notion of communal

eff ort as a Japanese virtue. Kurokawa’s success natu-

ralizes the idea that only by sacrifi cing the interests of

the self (or inn) can the group (Kurokawa) prosper.

Importantly, this narrative not only lionizes

Kurokawa’s business leaders, but also implicitly

blames residents of other rural villages for their eco-

nomic and social woes. For instance, when Gotō com-

plains, “Everywhere you go in Japan, landscapes have

become the same” (Gotō 2005, 18), he is also blaming

the residents of other villages for failing to build a

sense of local identity or resist the damaging eff ects

of ‘outside capital’ (gaibushihon), those businesses

owned by non-local Japanese corporations whose

presence (and landscape choices) destroys a coherent

local identity (Gotō 2005, 10). Moreover, Kurokawa’s

landscape narrative implies that Japan’s twentieth

century story of rural depopulation was not the result

of the systematic prioritization of urban development

at the expense of the countryside, and that any rural

village could be revitalized if only residents were

suffi ciently cooperative, interdependent, hard work-

ing, and innovative. In this way, the furusato theme

becomes much more than an aesthetic and aff ective

set of associations evoking nostalgia for simpler rural

past. It also becomes a source of local identity for

one village and a normative force admonishing other

rural villages for not realizing their inner furusato in

contemporary Japan.

NOTES1. Among Japanese geographers keikan was the preferred term

for much of the twentieth century, with fukei popular in literary circles. Keikan had a more scientific focus, relating to man’s relationship with the land. German scholarship on Landschaft further influenced Japanese ideas on landscape (keikan) from the 1920s onward. In the 1980s, ideas of landscape as a “way of seeing” (mikata), as introduced by scholars like Denis Cosgrove and Peter Jackson, entered the Japanese academy and encouraged many to use fukei instead, given its more humanistic elements. For a complete discussion of the history of the terminology of “landscape” in geography in Japan, see Watanabe, et al. (2009).

2. The Landscape Act calls on communities to protect or create beautiful landscapes for the sake of future genera-tions, and it specifically notes the importance of landscapes in tourism. However, as Watanabe, et. al. (2009) point out, “landscape” (keikan) is not defined in the Act, thereby potentially causing confusion in its implementation.

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McMorran 15

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This research was sup-ported in part by the National Science Foundation (DDRI Award #0602711) and the Japan Foundation. Special thanks to the people of Kurokawa Onsen for their assistance, and Tokunaga Satoshi of S&T Institute of Environmental Planning and Design for permission to reprint several images. Thanks also to members of the Social and Cultural Geographies research group at the National University of Singapore, and four anony-mous reviewers for their invaluable comments on earlier drafts. I am responsible for any remaining deficiencies.

AUTHOR Chris McMorran is Senior Lecturer in the Department of Japanese Studies at the National Uni-versity of Singapore. He is a cultural geographer with research interests in mobilities, landscapes, tourism, qualitative methods, and the geographies of learning. He is currently completing an ethnography of a Japa-nese hot springs resort that examines the complex physical and emotional labor required to make it feel like “home.”

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